Category Archives: education

Learning Along the Arc of a Life

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Learning Along the Arc of a Life: a diagramNotes on the diagram: The above diagram is my first attempt to visualize some of the insights from the lecture I am reporting on below. The baseline on the bottom is meant to signify the possibly of forgetting or failing to invest in learning. The gentle arc I have put in place suggests that learning is the generally the focus of early life but it very much continues as one continues through life. I left out some of the more informal kinds of learning only because I did not quite know how to symbolize them or where to place them on the arc. I’m certainly open to suggestions on how the diagram could be rendered richer and morecomplete.

Earlier this week, I had the pleasure to attend a public lecture at the iSchool Institute by serial technology entrepreneur Steven Forth. His talk explored the theme of lifelong learning and the question of who owns learning and our records of this. During the wide ranging topic, he also discussed setting goals and learning plans. In reading productivity books and blogs (including the noted Getting Things Done book), I had come across some of this goal setting ideas before. However, Forth paired this system with the Strengths Finder methodology in a way I found quite engaging. Through graduate school and in other contexts, I have had an interest in learning how different people learn and this talk deepened that interest further. One aspect I had not yet previously considered was Forth’s example of how some people prefer to understand a model or abstraction first and then consider applications while others prefer to build up experience and then derive rules or a model from that.

In reflecting on the event, several questions come to mind that I would like to share with my readers:

  • How should one reflect on and plan informal learning (loosely defined as learning that occurs outside the purview of formal educational institutions)?
  • What is the right balance of learning goals? (in Forth’s examples, drawn from real individuals, he generally listed three major goals per year with a mix of career goals and lifestyle goals)
  • Beyond funding for educational activities, how should employers support learning? (A truly complex question but one well worth exploring)

Now for some shameless self promotion! If you enjoyed this post, you might be interested to have a look at my post on the inaugural iSchool Institute given in April: The Launch of the iSchool Institute. The next iSchool public lecture, “IT Has a Great Future Potential: Is the Management Ready?” by Bruce J. Rogow on October 27 looks very promising as well; register for this free event.

Skills Over Rules: there is no royal road to information literacy

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Information literacy instruction is a core responsibility of many academic librarians, but there is a structural tension. In my experience working for the AskON service, I encounter what I call the “skills vs rules” dilemma when working with student: a student over wants a ruling on an issue rather than seeking to explore the issue or learn about it. For example, a common question I encounter would be, “Is X resource peer reviewed?” The student is usually looking for a simply yes or no answer so they can move on to the next step in their work.  My general approach is to issue the ruling, explain the process I used to come to the decision and then offer to lead the student through the process.

Wikipedia poses another example of this issue in my thinking; many students like to use this resource but many instructors hate this. Why? The old, superficial way to think about this conflict is between the technologically savvy Generation Y student and the technologically unsophisticated instructor that barely tolerates technology. In my view, the real issue that professors and academic librarians have with Wikipedia is not technological, it is cultural. For some, the open nature of the editing process is a problem (though I would point out that the design of the system makes vandalism extremely easy to repair). For others, it is the lack of expert contributions. I can appreciate both those concerns, but the real problem is that the student isn’t being through enoug they’re just skimming the surface of available research and knowledge.

One of the outcomes of a proper university education should be to acquaint students with the vast universe of knowledge that exists out there and the skills to work through it. Simply telling them not to use a specific resource might help them with a specific assignment, but it does not build lasting skills. Even if I could, I wouldn’t want to provide students with a simple list of “do this” and “don’t do this”: they are capable of better. As a teacher of a friend once remarked, they should push for greater depth.

Encouraging Young Readers Through Choice

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Pam Allyn, a literary expert and the author of What to Read When who runs an organization that educates teachers, agrees that the time has come to abandon the class novel – leaving it to selected high school English classes designed to teach the classics. While some teachers can be effective with the approach, she says that often students tell themselves: “I have to get through this book. I’ve got to learn to understand it the way my teacher wants me to.” That can be boring for good readers, she says, and “devastating” for struggling students.

Tina Gordon, president of the Canadian Council of Teachers of English and a resource teacher at a Winnipeg-area high school, says many teachers are trying new approaches – such as introducing one book in many different ways, or reading excerpts out loud – and seeing the value in choice in English class. She understands why many teachers still love the class novel, wanting to expose young people to the books they love. But, she says, “some of our practices we keep because they’re tradition.” And because, she adds, both teachers and parents hold on to the idea that “what makes a more educated person is if they can quote Hamlet.”

Source: Erin Anderssen, Letting students choose books could make them better readers, Globe & Mail, March 29 2010

Intuitively, the findings reported in this Globe & Mail article, Letting students choose books could make them better readers, strike me as very plausible. I remember accessing the school and public library during my elementary years with great fondness. I’ll confess that I wasn’t reading the great novels of the nineteenth century though – I wanted to read about the Cold War, World War II, Ancient Rome, Ancient Greece, technology and so forth. I certainly fiction as well, but I think that something like two thirds to three quarters of my reading then (and now) tends to be non-fiction.  I wonder if the unrelenting focus on reading novels is part of the problem with engaging young students. Maybe some of them want to learn about history or other non-fiction topics more than they want to read fiction? I think that Tina Gordon makes a good point in arguing that some practices in reading education is little more than traditi0n. Tradition can be a good thing (e.g. the rule of law in the West) but it shouldn’t be continued solely on the basis of it being traditional.

Young Learners Need Librarians, Not Just Google (Forbes)

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This article – Young Learners Need Librarians, Not Just Google – from Forbes, a US business magazine, is a great read. It is especially inspiring for librarians in schools and those working in companies. Here are some particularly good quotes:

As a former corporate lawyer, I owe much of my success to effective research skills that evolved, with the help of skilled trainers, as new tools came along. As a former executive officer at a company that had 1,200 employees in 29 countries worldwide, I know that without adequate media literacy training, kids will not succeed in a 21st-century workplace

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In a recent study of fifth grade students in the Netherlands, most never questioned the credibility of a Web site, even though they had just completed a course on information literacy. When my company asked 300 school students how they searched, nearly half answered: “I type a question.” When we asked how students knew if a site was credible, the most common answers were “if it sounds good” or “if it has the information I need.” Equally dismal was their widespread failure to check a source’s date, author or citations.

This is troubling for it implies that information literacy training, at least in this specific Dutch case, is failing. One possible explanation is laziness – critical evaluation of information takes longer than simply applying the first thing you find. Yet, I am reluctant to accept the suggestion that laziness is the whole explanation.

Students at many elite schools are learning critical 21st century skills while librarians are eliminated from budget-stressed school districts. The result? What a University College of London study called a “new divide,” with students who have access to librarians “taking the prize of better grades” while those who don’t have access to school librarians showing up at college beyond hope, having “already developed an ingrained coping behaviour: they have learned to ‘get by’ with Google.

I’m very conflicted about this observation. On the one hand, it clearly demonstrates the critical contribution that librarians make to education. On the other hand, it highlights just how great the challenges are to bringing education to all. I do believe that everybody has the right to participate in a rich education and that librarians have an important role. Without the foundation of skills to do research, find relevant information and evaluate it, college and university study becomes close to impossible and career success is equally undermined. If you’re still coming across people that think that Internet search engines eliminate the need for librarians, here’s yet another way to show them the error of their ways.

Lessons Learned: How College Students Find Information in the Digital Age (Report)

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Produced by Project Information Literacy, the Lessons Learned: How College Students Find Information in the Digital Age report (issued December 2009) has plenty of data for academic librarians to consider. Many of the findings are distressing for they show that students generally avoid librarians and have a very narrow view of the library’s services. Thank you Dr Allison J. Head and Dr Michael B. Eisenberg for doing this important research. Here are some of the key findings worth considering:

  • Only about 25% of instructors advise students to recommended a librarian to do course-related research.
  • “The relatively consistent pattern of information usage suggests that most students in our study favored a risk-averse and predictable information-seeking strategy. The student approach appears to be learned by rote and reliant on using a small set of resources nearly each and every time.” – page 32
  • We see a perfect storm brewing on some campuses: (1) many students have imperatives to graduate in four years or less, because of the weak economy, rising tuition costs, and pressure from the institution and family; (2) many students take a brimming course load each term, which may require more work than they are capable of completing; (3) many students develop a work style that tries to get as much done in as little time as possible and work expands to fill the time allotted; and (4) many studentsʼ information-seeking competencies end up being highly contextual, a set of predictable skills developed for passing courses, not for lifelong literacy and professional goals beyond college… As a result, we see the very important pedagogical goals of deep learning and critical thinking are at risk of being greatly impeded within the academy.” – page 34
  • “We see a trend that concerns us: Students in our study developed information strategy that was learned by rote, applied with dogged consistency, and resulted in respectable grades. Many studentsʼ research methods appear to be far from experimental, new, developmental, or innovative.” – page 34

There is much for librarians to think about here, not least of which is the question of student information habits. It strike me as likely that many students form their information habits prior to starting university or college and that they often do little to change. The report also found that students typically start their research process with assigned readings and a handful of other resources. Inspiring students to learn more deeply is part of the challenge that academic librarians face and I’m not sure how that can be achieved. One option is to work more closely with faculty members, many of which no doubt share the concern that students are not learning critical thinking skills in much depth.

Thanks , K.G. Schneider, (author of the excellent Free Range Librarian blog) for pointing this study out.

Learning economics: an introduction in five books

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In 2008, I started to become very interested in learning more about economics. There are several reasons for this including the fact that a friend had recently started a PhD in the subject and the fact that the financial crisis was starting to bubble over. I hda also been listening to the EconTalk podcast for some time by then and wanted to learn more. Several years earlier, I had taken an undergraduate economics course and it was awful; boring charts and math that seemingly had nothing to do with the real world. Then, I happened to come across some books that helped me learn more about the topic. In this post, I’m going to describe some of them and what I learned from them. One of the most important things I learned about economics is that it goes far beyond the world of business; it is a social science that can be used to explain and investigate all kinds of events and behaviour.

The Economic Naturalist by Robert H. Frank

This book is highly readable and really provides a good introduction to the fundamental principles of economics, including incentives and supply and demand. And yes, it is free of abstract diagrams that make you scratch your head in confusion. The book is also incredibly engaging due to its unique format. For years, Frank has assigned his students the task of seeking to explain some aspect of daily life using economic principles. The catch is that they have to answer the problem in 500 words. That kind of restraint was very productive and you get all kinds of interesting questions asked and answered in this book. In contrast, I was much less interested in Frank’s 2009 book, The Economic Naturalist’s Field Guide: Common Sense Principles for Troubled Times, which collects his columns from the New York Times and other sources. There are some interesting sections there but it doesn’t give you the kind of education his earlier popular book provides.

You also can read the first chapter of the Economic Naturalist for free online. If you want to get a sample of Frank’s newspaper style writing, you can read some of his writing for the New York Times. If you’re curious to kno w more about Frank’s views on the current sorry state of economics education, his interview on EconTalk is the place to go.

Discover Your Inner Economist by Tyler Cowen

Tyler Cowen is an economics professor who is also co-author of the Marginal Revolution blog, one of the best economics blogs I’ve read out there with posts on all kinds of topics. DYIE is a conversational kind of book that is endlessly fascinating and gives you a sense of Cowen’s wide ranging interests. He looks at topics ranging from dentist to dining around the world (e.g. he argues that poor countries or neighbourhoods tend to have better food than rich areas since the main cost of really good food is labour). It was a lot of fun to read but it does not come across quite as strongly as other books I’ve read. At times, it is a weird blend of economics and self-help; a combination that seems promising but ultimately doesn’t quite work. His blog, mentioned above, is well worth a read though be prepared for a variety of topics there too.

Freakonomics and Superfreakonomics by Steven D. Levvit and Stephen J. Dubner

These pair of books (the original in 2005 and the “super” one in 2009) can be credited with creating a great deal of popular interest in economics. After all, where else are you going to find economists trying to explain the economics of drug gangs and prostitutes? That’s much more sexy that trying to price mortgages or deriveratives. Both authors have got a lot of attention out of these books and they write a fun NY Times blog on economics too. These are probably the most page-turning economics books you’ll ever read but you might well end up feeling a bit dissatisfied. There’s no conclusion or effort made to draw larger conclusions; you just get a bunch of case studies on a seemingly random set of topics. Would I recommend the books? They’re fun to talk about and read very quickly but I don’t know that I’d consider them to be all that great. BUT, if you think economics is boring and just about topics like interest rates, then you should read Freakonomics.

The Freakonomics books are probably the most book-club friendly of the books discussed here but I wonder at their enduring value. For me and others, they showed that economics can be used to discuss and understand problems outside of business school and the stock market, and for that, they deserve some credit and recognition.

Filthy Lucre: Economics For People Who Hate Capitalism by Joseph Heath

This is one unique book written by Canadian philosophy professor Joseph Heath and it has a unique structure. Heath systematically looks at economics points routinely misunderstood by the political left and right and takes them apart. I couldn’t find a part of the book online, but there’s an extended interview with Heath on YouTube that gives you an idea of what the book is about. For example, Heath attacks the idea capitalism is somehow natural and good (regulation is needed to make it work well), for example. Heath also discusses the fallacy that taxes eliminate wealth or the economy; taxes pay for education, schools, public health programs, regulation and the framework of rules that makes life relatively pleasant and safe. If you’re more interested about the relationship between politics and economic arguments, this is a good book to consider. Neither the traditional political right or left has a monopoly on economic wisdom.

The book also has a damn good cover (a pig capitalist!) and that’s part of the reason that I first picked it in the bookstore. The ultimate appeal of this book is the philosophical way Heath approaches the topic, the way he brings politics into the discussion. Economics is a challenging topic and figuring out how to explain the world is a challenge, but I think these books help you get started. It is not a mystery and more people should get interested in the topic and see how it can apply to other aspects of life beyond the traditional areas of economic interest like business, interest rates, investment and so forth.

Yaffle: Memorial University’s communicates university research to Joe Public

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The Logo for Yaffle, a search engine developed at Memorial University.

Yaffle is a new tool created at Memorial University to better communicate university research to the public. As Globe and Mail writer Elizabeth Church put it, “A new search engine designed by Memorial University is aiming to make it easier for Joe Public to tap the know-how of the ivory tower.” For those interested in learning more about the project, I recommend having a look at the G&M article: Need to decipher academic material? Yaffle it. My initial look at the tool leads me to think that it is still rough around the edges. From my perspective, aggregating all academic research together in one place is not the major problem in Joe Public understanding academic research. The problem is more that the research itself uses terms and concepts that are unfamiliar and confusing to a non-specialist. That said, it is valuable to have a search engine specialize in academic research rather than the Internet more generally.

In digging through the search engine’s features, I’ve found some good aspects as well as weaknesses. Yaffle does well in demonstrating the link between academic research and economic gain, or showing where such links can be forged. In addition to research, Yaffle also showcases various projects in the works. For example, I came across this project designed to bring IT skills to central Newfoundland: Students Making IT Work For Small Businesses in Central Newfoundland. One area where Yaffle is weak is the expertise finder; one can only browse by academic department or name of expert. For a journalist or somebody who is looking for an expert, I doubt this would be very useful. It is like a library catalogue that restricts searching to title or author. One long term issue for the project’s success is that participation in it is voluntary and, as the Globe article referred to above states, “You can encourage professors to share their research, but there is no incentive for them to do that.” This remark reminds me of open access participation which is likewise not generally supported by formal incentives.

Knowledge Ontario Wants Your Views & Opinions

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For the past two months, I’ve volunteered as an intern at Knowledge Ontario‘s AskON service. AskON is a virtual reference service that helps students and members of the public with questions and learning more about research. It has been a pleasure to get to know some other librarians from all over the province and assist students. I’ve mainly worked in the university sector of the service and have found it helpful. On at least three occasions, I have had assisted students enough that typed all manner of jubilant thanks. The service is free to residents of Ontario (and others as far as I know; unlike say the BBC, I don’t think Knowlege Ontario imposes hard geographical restrictions) and I welcome you to experiment with it.

If you like what you see, then consider filling in a digital postcard with your comments. You can also see what others have posted about the service.

Convocation

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Today, I received my Master of Information Studies degree at the University of Toronto. It was a pleasure to see all the other graduates present and catch up with some other people in my program. I deeply enjoy the rituals and rites of academia, especially the gowns and hoods. I now have three degrees and that will do for the time being. I may yet go back for further study, but seven years of full time university is a lot and I’m interested to focus on the challenges of the workplace.

Near the beginning of the proceedings, the Chancellor of the University stated (in Latin first, then English):

To the benefit of this province and of the Canadian people with all their allies, I, by my authority and that of the whole University, admit you to the various degrees, and I grant you the license of doing those things which pertain to those degrees.

I have been thinking of how to apply this statement to myself as a professional and as a citizen. As a Master of Information, I am well positioned on connecting people with information effectively. I also see it as a duty to keep myself informed about wider trends that shape the context of my work. That covers everything from technology, to law and to broader economics trends in publishing and related industries. This is all in addition to the duties and responsibilities I bear as a well educated person – to participate in democratic life, to contribute to cultural life and to further the development of civilization. Those are all grand, difficult goals but those are the goals that I like.

Neuroscience and what it means for education, work and more

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For over a year, I have been reading and learning about the insights of neuroscience. The starting point for such learning should be the science; Dr Norman Doidge’s book “The Brain that changes itself” is a key popular book in this area. There are other books that have developed this theme for other contexts. In the field of economics, I am reading, “Create Your Own Economy” by Tyler Cowen. There is also Daniel Pink’s book “A Whole New Mind,” that uses neuroscience as a metaphor to think about business and career development.

To my great delight, the Toronto Star newspaper  has launched an eight day series on neuroscience by writer Alanna Mitchell. Today’s article is called, “Brains: the secret to better schools.” Most of the examples concern the traditional education setting, mainly the primary school level in fact. However, I think the points made in the article can be generalized to other contexts, not least of which is continuing education. Let me take you through a few quotes from the article to get you thinking and hopefully inspired.

“We used to say that intelligence was 80 per cent genetic and 20 per cent environmental,” says Martin Westwell, a neuroscientist in Adelaide at Flinders University. “Now we tend to say that it’s 20 per cent genetic and 80 per cent environmental.”

The brain is malleable. And the research is showing that if students think they can learn, then they do. If they think their intelligence is fixed at a low level – whether because of social or economic status, skin colour, gender, family history, which country they live in – then they stick to that level.

“It is absolutely clear that the brain is not fixed,” says Westwell. “And in schools the kids who see intelligence as malleable have a better trajectory.”

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To many neuroscientists, today’s mainstream education system is mired firmly where medicine was during the Middle Ages. Practices continue based on tradition, not science, just as medieval doctors used leeches to bleed patients without knowing whether it worked.

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“It’s like lighting the fire. Learning skills are inert until they are driven by intrinsic motivation,” says Jonathan Sharples, a neuroscientist at the Institute for Effective Education at the University of York in England.

It’s the opposite of being ordered to memorize something for no apparent reason and then spitting it out on cue. The human brain just doesn’t respond well to being told to hold the body still for long periods, focus the mind and learn something just because another person tells it to do so. The brain needs context and meaning. It needs to know why it should learn.

All of those observations strike me as promising and worthy of contemplation. The claim that modern education is stuck in the dark ages may be a bit controversial but I think there is something to it. Part of the problem may be that those aspiring to apply neuroscience to formal education systems presume that learning is the only or primary goal of formal education. In contrast, Tyler Cowen argues that economists have identified at least three motivations for education: “First, we go to school to learn something. Second, we go to school to demonstrate our smarts and perseverance, or in other words to show that we can ‘jump through hoops.’ Economics call this the ‘signaling model of education.’ Third, we go to school because it is (sometimes) fun.” (Create Your Own Economy, p 106).

You can read an overview of the series and read the rest of the articles over at the Toronto Star.

What do you think of these findings? Would they change how you design education programs? What about how you teach others what you know (either in a formal setting or when you are assisting a friend, colleague or family member)? As a professional dedicated to the effective use of information and knowledge, this series reminds me of the complexity of the problem. And that I shouldn’t accept it when people say they are past learning something.